Links, Including an Insightful Realization from If You’re Going Through Hell Keep Going

The author of the blog above writes: “I think my moods have reverted back to the way they were in Junior High and High School – medium to low functioning, and petrified to be around people.” Oh, so true. It’s as if all of the social lessons I learned late in high school and during my undergraduate — which, let’s face it, weren’t many — have melted away, leaving me the same bundle of exposed nerves that I was at about age 13, the age of my first serious depression.

Another excellent post about social functioning comes from Knowledge Is Necessity, John McManamy’s comprehensive blog and website reviewed earlier in this space. He gives a great description of how difficult it is to control the social impression we make, and of how our hypomania, or just what feels normal can send people “backing for the exits.” Well put.

I continue to be impressed with the excellent writing on Farewell Prozac. In his latest post, the author gives an intimate description, both of the lingering effects of the drug, and of his returning symptoms. Last night a friend remarked that some people need to take antidepressants all of their lives, and others should come off of them, and that it’s nearly impossible to know in advance which you are. I agree with that remark. Here’s hoping that the author of Farewell Prozac is one of the latter.

If You’re Going Through Hell Keep Going notes that antidepressant sales are up. Surprisingly, this is not because of increased diagnoses, which is what I assumed. Rather, people are taking them longer. I don’t know quite what to make of that, except to pass on my shrink’s observation that there are three elements to wellness with a mental illness: meds, social support, and spiritual development. In countries where antidepressants simply aren’t available, people rely more on the last two, and tend to do as well if not better than people in highly medicated Western countries. And certainly if I lived in a country with closer ties to extended family and a more structured approach to spirituality, I would feel more comfortable trying the high-wire-without-a-net act of going med-free. As it is, going off is not an option I would consider seriously, despite the most excellent support of my immediate family and of the most excellent congregation at St. Philip’s.

And that’s a good place to leave it. Happy Thursday, and the usual love to all.

Revolt and Resignation

In his collection of essays On Aging, Holocaust survivor Jean Amery said that one must meet the phenomenon of aging -- inevitable yet terrifying -- with both revolt and resignation. So it is with mental illness. To deny that I will always be manic-depressive would be true madness; at the same time, I must revolt against my condition, rejecting the idea that it defines and limits me.